Canadian City Bends The Rules For Madonna To Perform On Historic Battleground

Posted 03/15/2012 12:17:11 pm
by MTV News.

Madonna, Facebook

By Zachary Swickey

Haven’t you always wanted to see Madonna perform on the same field that British Soldiers defeated the French in 1759? Well, now’s your chance as officials for Quebec City’s historic Plains of Abraham have announced the Queen of Pop will be performing on the park grounds late this summer.

The Canadian city is bending its own rules to accommodate Her Madgesty. The venue has a strict policy forbidding for-profit concerts on the grounds, which was declared the very first historic site in Canada back in 1908.

Concert promoter Live Nation Entertainment will be presenting the concert on September 1 and a staggering 70,000 tickets have already been sold. Madonna is clearly working hard to put together a show that will delight her fans, and she’s been keeping us all in the loop by posting pictures from rehearsals (including the injuries she’s sustained) for the massive, largely sold-out world tour on her Facebook (one of which is above).

Typically, the park has been used for the Quebec Winter Carnival, but since 2008, concerts have taken place there with appearances from Sir Paul McCartney, Metallica, Elton John and Van Halen. However, none of those artists charged anything for tickets.

Talking to the Canadian Press, local promoter Sylvain Parent-Bedard explained that charging admission will allow them to limit capacity to the event to avoid an uncomfortably large crowd (200,000 people showed up to McCartney’s gig).

“(Madonna) really wants to have a big dance party. It’s a big party for fans – she wanted a big party for fans,” he said.

Joanne Laurin, spokesperson for the National Battlefields Commission, told the wire service, “Generally, we don’t accept any commercial activity, but in this case it’s really exceptional. But people shouldn’t presume anything regarding future requests we might get.” (Basically, it sounds like we should only expect Madonna to get special treatment.)

She explained her reasoning to the Globe and Mail newspaper, “We accepted it because we presume there will be major economic benefits for Quebec City.”